Muscovites

Scores of thousands of Muscovites turned out Thursday for the funeral of a beloved actor, Andrei A. Mironov, in a traffic-stopping demonstration of grief and respect. Mironov, 46, died Monday on the stage while performing the title role of "Figaro" in Riga, the capital of Latvia. People of all ages jammed the sidewalks around the Satire Theater, on Moscow's Garden Ring Road, hoping to catch a last glimpse of their favorite star before his burial in Vagankovo cemetery.

MOSCOW -- More than 20 people, including 6 police officers, were injured during ethnic riots that began Sunday in a southern Moscow suburb and continued overnight, authorities said. Thousands of young people took to the streets in Biryulyovo, demanding the eviction of migrant workers from the Northern Caucasus and from outside Russia. The protests came in the wake of the killing last week of a 25-year-old resident, Yegor Shcherbakov, reportedly by an attacker who appeared to be of Caucasus or Central Asian origin.

It was hailed as the first U.S.-style football contest played in the Soviet Union and the two all-star high school teams from Oklahoma had the time of their lives showing the Soviets what football is all about. The announcer tried to lecture the Soviet spectators on the fine points. "Remember, the idea of the game is to try to move forward," he said. "The main thing is not to fall. The thing is to stay on your feet as long as possible." The thousands of Soviets who paid four rubles each (about $7)

The great thing about visiting Moscow from Los Angeles is you don't have to reset your watch. It's a 12-hour time difference, so all you have to do is think about the time in a different way. Of course, winter in Russia is a little bit different from winter in Southern California. As the sun sets on Moscow, it's 7 degrees below zero and your guide is giving thanks for the mild weather. "It was 20 below zero last night," one local told me when I arrived Tuesday. "Be careful of icicles," said another.

Muscovites are being plagued by swarms of mosquitoes and are writing thousands of letters to sanitation authorities asking for help and advice, the Soviet government newspaper Izvestia reported. With temperatures in Moscow already in the 80s, the insects are gathering in damp, warm basements, Izvestia said Friday.

The great thing about visiting Moscow from Los Angeles is you don't have to reset your watch. It's a 12-hour time difference, so all you have to do is think about the time in a different way. Of course, winter in Russia is a little bit different from winter in Southern California. As the sun sets on Moscow, it's 7 degrees below zero and your guide is giving thanks for the mild weather. "It was 20 below zero last night," one local told me when I arrived Tuesday. "Be careful of icicles," said another.

Following are excerpts from Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin's speech to the nation Monday, as translated by the Associated Press. Dear compatriots: I am turning to you at this difficult moment. Shots are thundering in Russia's capital and blood has been spilled. Fighters who have been brought from the whole country and have been incited by the White House leaders are sowing death and destruction. I know that it was a sleepless night for many of you.

Lena, 24, considers herself lucky because she is allowed to live in Moscow instead of her birthplace in Kaluga, a city of 280,000 people about 70 miles southwest of Moscow. But to qualify as a Muscovite, Lena has put in seven years of hard work in a textile factory and lived in a dormitory, four to a room. Getting an apartment of her own is still a distant dream, years in the future.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev rode around the summit sites in a Zil limousine and stayed in a two-story stone mansion not far from Lake Geneva. Some of his comrades who accompanied him to the summit meeting, however, stayed in much more modest quarters, riding the bus and scrimping to stretch their food allowance in one of Europe's most expensive cities.

From early morning until late at night, excavators rumble along the dry floor of Patriarch's Ponds, laying the foundations for a monument to the Russian writer who injected the aura of the surrounding park into the imaginations of generations of readers. Muscovites have long complained of the inconveniences of Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov's ambitious construction program -- sleepless nights illuminated by floodlights, sidewalks that disappear into swamps of gravel and mud.

MOSCOW -- Alexander Karpov faced death twice in the last days before he died, one of the hostages held by Chechen rebels at a Moscow theater. Twice during the siege, Chechen gunmen led Karpov, 31, into a corridor for execution. A gun was put to his back. He was told he would be killed and he heard the gun fire. Both times, the gunman shot into the air, near his head. Karpov survived that cruelty, only to die of the sleeping gas used in the rescue operation.

In this dying village, people don't carve out a living. They scrape it with their nails from the soil. For the old women who have to chop their own kindling and the lonely widows who shed tears at giving their last cow up to the butcher, what use is art? Thirteen years ago, artist Nikolai Polissky came to this village from Moscow, burning with creativity. He built armies of snowmen and whimsical towers out of hay, or firewood or twigs, whatever was lying around.

Most days, traffic creeps through the streets of central Moscow at an average pace of 6 mph. But one commuter rips through at speeds topping 85 mph: President Vladimir V. Putin. Judging by radio talk shows and newspaper stories, frustration with Putin's motorcades is on the rise in the ever-more-congested Russian capital. Muscovites are not just angry that Putin's presidential privileges let him escape the snarl, they are also convinced that the president increasingly is causing it.

The mall at the busy corner of Van Nuys and Ventura boulevards seems poised to become the Valley's own Little Russia. First came Tagarka, a Russian newsstand. Now Tsarina, a pretty little six-table deli run by transplanted Muscovites Mark and Nadya Gekht, has moved in next-door. Russian will get you further than English here; they answer the telephone "Dobryi den," rather than "Hello."

MOSCOW -- More than 20 people, including 6 police officers, were injured during ethnic riots that began Sunday in a southern Moscow suburb and continued overnight, authorities said. Thousands of young people took to the streets in Biryulyovo, demanding the eviction of migrant workers from the Northern Caucasus and from outside Russia. The protests came in the wake of the killing last week of a 25-year-old resident, Yegor Shcherbakov, reportedly by an attacker who appeared to be of Caucasus or Central Asian origin.

Stanislav Gronsky, a gangly, 28-year-old engineer with a pale, horsy face, figures he could moonlight loading boxes or work as a watchman all three shifts a day and take home a triple salary. Lida, a slim, studious art historian, has started to think about abandoning her profession and taking a higher-paying job as a janitor. And Igor, a blond, acne-pitted wheeler-dealer of 22, calculates that if he can just get the start-up money, he could build his own china factory.

In this haven of hard drinking and heavy smoking, where vices are still valued as the measure of a real man, a little political correctness tried to elbow its way into 1998 New Year's parties: The inaugural edition of Men's Health magazine in Russian hit newsstands with musings on the virtues of vegetables, suave conduct at business lunches and tips for tasteful selection of a New Year's gift for the boss.

Car bombs, speed demons and potholes wide enough to swallow a whole chassis have been menacing Moscow motorists since the collapse of communism, but nothing outrages drivers like the latest peril: the meter maid. The Russian version bears little resemblance to Lovely Rita of Beatles fame; here, pay-lot attendants and tow-truck operators tend to pack pistols along with their ticket books.